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Everything posted by zed

Yeah. I think there are a lot of people who have an unhealthy relationship with triathlon. They are using it as a crutch, an escape or whatever. The longer I'm in the sport, the more obvious that is. You can see it from a mile off. Mark Robson being an extreme example, the fat kid school...

Is it possible KQ with (I'm guessing) not a whole heap of relevant training and 15 hours is going to screw this girls motivation. She's going to move up an AG and have to go 5 hours quicker to KQ. Another girl in a similar boat, no names mentioned, seems to be struggling and possibly lost to the sport, which would be a shame. Good to encourage kids into the sport, but I'm not sure an easy pathway to the World Championships is the best way to go about it. I think it would have the opposite effect and curtail their time in the sport rather than giving it longevity.

She's not being questioned, the qualification process and "World Championship" status is being questioned. The qualification process is flawed and calling the race a "World Championship" is a misnomer.

Yeah the point is moot. Ironman couldn't give a f**k. Lottery, celebrity spots, legend status etc etc It's a shame Challenge aren't proving more of a competition to them, they just do what they want. It's all about the $$.

Sounds like a great idea. Young lady qualified in a time slower than a 70 year old woman and 80 year old man and she's in her prime.... I think age grading is an awesome idea. Is it done in any other sports?
AP (or anyone else) would you have a problem with age grading?

Kona is the holy grail, I think people have an issue with that being devalued, not a case of devaluing someone's achievement. The qualifying process is the problem. As someone else said earlier, chuck all the participants from the AGs with low numbers together, F18-24, M70-74 etc and give them 3 spots or whatever.

As I said earlier, the main aim is to maintain the integrity and credibility of this sport and the "World Championship". It's great having 70 year olds doing it and people that have survived cancer etc etc We need a diverse group of participants, as Sam alluded to. We don't want 2000 18 - 24 year old blokes, but we need to find a way of maintaining diversity whilst maintaining integrity. Finishing last in your AG and qualifying with 15 hours+ is not good for the sport and is probably not good for the individual. What does this woman do now, when she moves up an AG she will have to go 5 hours quicker to KQ. She'll probably quit. I'm happy for her she's going, but I'm not sure how you or anyone else can argue this is good for the sport and the credibility of the World Champs?

They would never have it in Busso after the debacle of the last 12months. There is so much pressure on the december race now, f**k knows what's going to happen. Almost inevitable they'll find a shark. Compare that to Cairns, zero helicopters, zero drones, zero f**ks given about crocodiles. We need the Cairns RD over in Perth..

Harder to qualify for Kona. Although when it was sunny coast there were zero rolldowns in perth. Seems to roll down more for women. I would say if it was in Australia your best bet would be to do a 70.3 that's run in-conjunction with an Ironman, tend to be fewer numbers e.g Cairns/Port/Busso in December.

Yup good way of pointing it. We can't call it the World Champs with people qualifying by finishing last. It's just another race. It's like with the Olympics when Eric the Eel swam, good on him and it was good to see, but it made the Olympics look like a bit of a joke hence the reason IOC introduced a much stricter qualifying system. The priority is ensuring the sport and this race in particular has credibility and integrity. Doing shit that affects those two factors harms the sport. That's not debatable. They either need to drop the World Champs name or have 2 races, one for the pros and top AGers and another one for all the others.

It depends where the race is and when it is. South Africa is popular and pretty much everyone took their spots in december in Busso. I was 5th, 1st had just come back from Kona so didn't take his spot and neither did 3rd. Lots missed out. But Busso in May, there were 30 spots and only 23 people turned up so anyone who wanted a spot got one. (Some guy finished 53rd and got a spot). Probably because it's so close to the race. If it is in Australia though, you would have to finish top 3, I reckon everyone would take their spots like they did for Sunny Coast. If you really wanted to qualify go race China or somewhere random and close to September as possible.

Not sure I understand. You've got guys training 25+ hours a week, going 8.55 and not qualifying and then people qualifying with 15 hours? But anyway as A2K said, if it was time based rather than AG based it would be a middle-aged sausagefest,